Chapter 145:Everything Has One Reason

The moment froze everyone in place.

The teacup Tene was about to bring to her lips stopped in mid-air, and Dariann’s smiling face stiffened.

They say people are too shocked to scream.

This was exactly that situation.

The woman was simply smiling at the Evergarden family.

Her neatly braided chestnut hair rested on her shoulders, and the obvious signs of piecing together scraps of fabric were evident in her clothes.

She was truly an ordinary girl one might see in a rural village, capable of captivating the hearts of a couple of innocent village boys.

A woman so lacking in distinctiveness that you would forget her within three seconds of passing her on the street.

But the problem was that this girl was now in the study of the Evergarden County estate, smiling calmly.

A gentle breeze blew.

The window, which had been tightly closed until just now, was wide open, and upon closer inspection, there was a bit of dirt on the windowsill.

A simple thought would be, “Ah, she opened the window and came in here,” a brazen act of intrusion that even a seven-year-old could deduce. 

However, the situation became strangely twisted, considering that the study of the Evergarden County estate was on the fourth floor,

and she had evaded the eyes of the guards patrolling the estate, jumped up to the fourth-floor window, opened it without anyone noticing, and remained undetected until she spoke.

There was an even more serious issue.

‘This is strange. A sudden intruder is standing in front of me so calmly, but why does it feel so natural?’

Despite the sudden appearance of the intruder, she didn’t feel out of place at all.

Her presence was so faint that you could believe she had been here from the beginning, and you probably wouldn’t have noticed her until you left the room if she hadn’t spoken.

‘Magic? No, if she had used magic, there should be some residual Magical Power left, but I don’t feel anything.’

The thought that she might have used magic crossed Felix’s mind, but he quickly dismissed it.

Even in modern times, when a gun is used, numerous gunpowder particles scatter around, allowing for the analysis of the crime scene.

Magic was the same.

The residual Magical Power created in the process of gathering Magical Power, establishing a Magical Power source, and manifesting magic would remain no matter what kind of magic was used.

It was so faint that it wouldn’t be detected by sensing magic, but Felix’s Magical Power Eyes were so powerful that they could even catch that faint residual Magical Power.

However, there was no residual Magical Power felt.

This meant that the girl who had appeared before their eyes was committing this act with pure physical abilities alone, without any Magical Power enhancement.

“Huh? Uh, uh?”

In the deathly silent situation, the first to speak was Tene.

She had been dazed by the girl’s appearance, and although she had regained her senses, she still looked bewildered.

Tene, being a dragon, was particularly skilled at detecting presences, to the point where she could sense the World Tree burning with Magical Power from a distance of 2-3 kilometers before it even happened.

The fact that even Tene hadn’t noticed her meant that the current situation was extremely dangerous.

Even more dangerous than that was the fact that she didn’t feel any sense of crisis or hostility towards her, which was an even greater danger.

Even if she tried to feel a sense of crisis and be tense, it felt like she couldn’t feel hostility towards a kitten.

Even if her mind thought so, her body naturally relaxed and didn’t tense up at all, so it felt like even if that girl slowly walked over and stabbed her heart with a knife, she wouldn’t be able to resist and would die peacefully.

“Hmm, did I interrupt teatime? There are such wonderful cookies here, so it must have been a pleasant time.”

Then, the unidentified girl who had frozen everyone around her nonchalantly picked up a cookie from the table and crunched it in her mouth.

“Everyone’s sitting down, so it’s awkward. May I borrow a chair for a moment?”

Then, as if she was embarrassed to be standing alone, the girl smiled sheepishly and sat down in an empty chair.

“…Ah, ah! Ah, ah!!”

At that moment, Felix, who had been racking his brain over the sudden situation, seemed to have remembered something and hurriedly stood up from his seat, pointing at her and opening his mouth.

“Eileen! It’s Eileen!! The protagonist of Twilight Starlight, Eileen!”

The protagonist of the original story.

Born as the daughter of a farmer in an ordinary rural territory, she was an ordinary girl who accepted the fate of the stars and became a hero.

And the girl who would become the hero who would save this world in the future.

Eileen.

Felix, who had read the original story dozens of times and mentioned the protagonist’s appearance hundreds, even thousands of times, couldn’t possibly fail to recognize her.

“The, protagonist?”

“Is that her…?”

“Then, why is she here…?”

With Felix’s shout, those who had been frozen gradually began to move and look at the girl.

“Yes, that’s right. Although I don’t know what will happen now.”

Eileen, unconcerned by the gazes of her family members who were looking at her with shocked expressions, grinned and shoved a cookie into her mouth.

“…The situation is sudden, but nice to meet you. I’m Freya Evergarden.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you. Nice to meet you.”

“What is the reason for your visit here?”

In that situation, Freya, who had barely regained her composure, looked at her with a smile as well.

“You were looking for me, weren’t you?”

“Looking for you means…”

“Asir caused trouble, didn’t he?”

“…..”

Eileen, who was asking Freya a question to inquire about her intentions, directly stated the conclusion, which was no different from introducing herself as the person who gathered the possessed and gave them orders, which the Evergarden family had been discussing until just now.

“It was unexpected. I didn’t think the World Tree would revive again. It had already been destroyed once in the original story, so I thought the timing would be a little earlier this time. I didn’t expect this to happen.”

“…Did you order it? To burn the World Tree.”

“To be exact, I ordered them to prevent the Elixir from being manufactured at all costs.”

“I didn’t specifically tell them the means, but if I had known it would turn out like this, I would have told them to try a different method… It’s a shame.”

And the bombshell statements continued.

Each of Eileen’s words blatantly revealed that she had been trying to harm the Evergarden family.

“You must be a possessed person too. If so, is there a reason why you’re hindering us?”

“Hindering… It’s similar, but a little different.”

“I wasn’t planning on hindering ‘you,’ but rather preventing the ‘Elixir’ from being released into the world.”

“Elixir? Why is that? Besides, the Elixir is fundamentally hindering the Third Emperor’s position….But we’re the ones who used the Elixir to establish the Fifth Princess’s position, so why would you bother hindering the Elixir?”

“If you were going to do that, you could have excluded us and taken over the distribution of the Elixir.”

“It’s in the way. It’s in the way of our plans.”

However, Eileen specifically answered Freya’s question by saying that it was not the ‘Evergarden County estate’ that was in the way, but the ‘Elixir.’

“We’re going to destroy the empire soon.”

“…Pardon?”

And another bombshell statement followed.

The intensity of that statement was so strong that even Freya, the master of composure, momentarily broke her facade and looked at her in disbelief.

“In that process, we’re targeting the Emperor of the empire, so there’s no need for a fight for the throne or anything like that, so we don’t care if you make that Fifth Princess extra the Emperor or whatever.”

“But that Elixir. It’s hard to destroy the empire if that Elixir exists.”

“Even if they take damage, they recover relatively quickly, and even if their Magical Power drops, they can recover with the Elixir, making it harder to defend against our attacks, so we’re not happy about it.”

“Wait, wait a minute. What did you just say?”

“…Even if they take damage, they recover relatively quickly—”

“Not that! You’re going to destroy the empire? Why? Suddenly? Why?”

While Freya remained silent, unable to choose the appropriate words in response to Eileen’s answer, Felix, who had taken a step towards her, asked accusingly.

It was an absurd situation.

Felix was confused by the situation where a being possessed by the original protagonist, who had suddenly appeared, was trespassing and declaring that she would destroy the empire.

“Right! The incident at the academy, was that your doing too? You had Ganix kill the prince there, burned the World Tree, and now you’re going to destroy the empire? That’s ridiculous!”

“And you’re saying that now, after saying it’s so much of a hindrance, coming here so nonchalantly…”

“What’s your purpose! What do you want!”

“There’s only one reason. No, there should only be one reason, shouldn’t there?”

In response to Felix’s shout, Eileen, who had put down the cookie with her bite marks on it, slowly looked at Felix and opened her mouth.

“To go home.”

“Home…?”

“I’m going back to modern times.”

“…Back to, modern times…?”

Eileen, who had caused all of these actions and had been hiding her identity and moving behind the scenes, was saying that what she wanted was to return to modern times.

One year after being possessed into the villainous extra family of the romance fantasy world called Twilight Starlight.

The protagonist who declares that she will return to modern times has appeared before them.